


the stone, the architect, the builder

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Character Growth, Character Study, Coming of Age, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Growing Up, Love, M/M, Poliamory, Post War, Traveling, wandering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:40:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6821473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's really simple: separate they're good, they're great, but if they wiggle around and make space, they fit. </p><p>(It's not that they fit together without trying. It's that they try, and try, until they find the best fit, and then stick with it).</p><p> <br/>Toph, Sokka and Zuko, coming together after the war. The world is in ruins; they rebuild it, and themselves along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the stone, the architect, the builder

**i**

The problem with life after the war is that she'd always delighted too much in crashing boulders together for the mess of it to deal with peace well.

All her life before Aang had showed up and showed her up (unfairly, he _cheated_ ) had been a lie of powdered noses and trading sweet smelling clothes for rough trousers, a merhant daughter's bargain for the chance of being herself. Toph had no doubt she'd have left that life eventually. She'd had a hundred half-made plans, fancies she'd always wanted to make true, and known she _could_ make true, but never acted on where her parents could know. She'd been treated like porcelain all her life when all she'd wanted to do was (break break _break_ ) be accepted for who she was, stonework with metal ores, a mountain under silks. All that tension under her skin, keeping up appearances - it would have overflowed one day. Toph was just glad they'd avoided a literal earthquake, her parents would be pissed about that.

They were pissed about a lot of things. So was she, more than ever. Maybe if she hadn't met Katara and Sokka, hadn't seen how Hakoda was around them, how Iroh and Zuko moved around each other without ever leaving an opening on the other's back. Yeah, maybe she wouldn't be so mad. But she'd seen the world now, she was the Earth Rumble's champion, the Avatar's Sifu, a war veteran, and the first time she shows up for what, amends? (a second chance, a thousandth, a hope that they would stop treating her like a blind doll if only they _saw_ how strong she was, how worthy of their pride) it doesn't go over well.

In the end, she lasts a week.

(They'd been terrified of her. In her darkest moments she'd thought about how it would be, to have her parents cower at the sight of her, like she'd cowered at their disapproval. It would be heady, she'd thought, and she'd been right. Heady, and vindicating, and it had left her feeling like a whole tectonic plate was cracking in her chest).

She travels, after. Spends some time with Iroh, absolutely does not cry over tea and hugs. Her short career as a teamaker's apprentice ends in a ... spectacular fashion. Porcelain bending had never been na idea before, but it was the least she could do, and a new trick was a new trick.

After that, there's the Dai Li and their stalking ways. They try to abduct her, out of all things, something about mind bending her into teaching the, how to bend metal if she didn't do it of her own free will. There was also a bit about being too dangerous to be let free, but she'd stopped paying attention to the evil spiel by then.

(She doesn't disagree, though. It would be a lie to say that she isn't dangerous. Part of her revels in it.

Part of her cowers in the face of it.)

She pulls through, of course she does, but it's not a fun ride, no matter how satisfying kicking their asses by bending the dust in the air turns out to be. It leaves her in a bad way, if she's honest, which she always is. They had been good, they were Dai Li, but she was supposed to be the best at what she did. Turns out, there are ways to hide even from seismic sight. And mind bending? Well, she makes sure not to let anyone notice when she breathes a sigh of relief after Kuei outlaws it.

The whole stint makes her wonder about sand, thought, and specifically how freaking awesome it would be to make literal sand castles, which means another run in with Wan Shi Tong. The sandbenders aren't too pumped about that, or her using their hidden forts to take down an evil knowledge spirit, but they have only to gain with its return to the Spirit World, so they lend a hand. On the bright side, her bribing the Earth King with a brand new library makes the remaining Dai Li furious.

  
(It helps, focusing on something else, or at least that's what she tells Iroh.

He says something about not being able to outrun ones own demon, about there being no shame in having ones spirit wounded by war. She waves him off with a joke about philosophical mumbo-jumbo and a cackle, and he lets her, shaking his head and reheating her tea.

They both know she understand exactly what he means. They both know this isn't something focusing on new and novel things will make go away).

She stays in the desert for one, one and a half years. They're rough people, the sandbenders, and she hasn't forgotten how they kidnapped Appa. But they fought well together, and they owe her, and better yet, they know they owe her. As payment she asks them to teach her how to bend sand. She'd pulled it off in the fight against Wan Shi Tong, but there's more to mastering an element than using it in a tough spot. In the dunes, she's not completely in control. They know that, too.

(Victory in battle is not enough of a proof, it seems. They demand her to work as they would in the sands, now that the desert is theirs again. The opportunists jump right in, petty smugglers and not so petty gangs coming together to control the territory, vultures to one big sandy prey. Sometimes it goes well enough, threats of the Blind Badit or worse, the Avatar, enough to makes the weaker thugs back off to still ground. But sometimes it gets bloody, and those are her favorite times. Deserts are dull, sandbenders not so much, but it takes her a while to find that out.

It's alright. She has no one waiting for her, nothing in front of her but the next challenge, the next destination. Time slips away from her, like gritty grains through fingers, until she learns to yank and stop dripping sand).

Then there's King Bumi. By far the best competition she's had in years, and the craziest bastard she'd ever had the pleasure of knowing. Bending with face muscles, now that's something. One time he's kidnapped and she ends up Queen of Omashu until sundown which hey, pretty cool, a drinking tale to beat all others. She moves on soon enough, with new earthbending tricks up her sleeve and a crown on her satchel, as a souvenir, or a gift from one awesome earth ending master to another.

It's the kind of wandering life she always dreamed for herself. She's happy, no matter that Katara frets and Aang's preaches koans about the road of life being too long without company. She steals Momo off him for that, and enjoys the little guy’s chirping way too much.

The thing is, she is lonely. Her magnificence is great and all, being an adored living legend is exactly as satisfying as it seems, but she misses the months before Sozin's Comet, traveling with the Gaang. She really misses Katara's cooking, promises to thank her for all the meals she made them, sweeten her up to tell her some recipes. But it's not the same.

(And what kind of person misses war, anyway? Only a heartless monster, a freak, an adrenaline junkie _dishonorable excuse for a daugh_ \--)

Everywhere she goes the marks of it are clear in the scars of the land. Even after all the treaties, the reparations and pretty speeches, one hundred years of bloodshed still make the air taste ashy. She makes herself useful, helping rebuild homes and town squares, the lot. It's would have been a challenge, when she can't see what she's building, if she couldn't sense the feel of the stone foundations better than any seeing architect. Add in metalbending, some sandbending, and it's not bad, not bad at all. Maybe not a calling, the way Iroh is with tea or Sokka with his inventions, but it's something close to that, and she loves it. Not just shaping the stone, even if that's the best feeling ever, outstubburning mountains, feeling the slow pressure and tension of ground beneath her toes, but also the making of homes for other people, hearing their awed gasps and grateful words, the way their heartbeat grows strong with hope.

She writes Sokka about that, using chalk to see the words, irregular letters to boast about a new feat or short jokes she heard in taverns when she's feeling cold under her earthbent huts on the road. He's the only one that understands that, the high of creating something from scratch and knowing you changed the fabric of the world with your wit and strength. So when he sends her a spec of his crazy new idea and asks if she's up to some building, she figures it wouldn't hurt to settle down for a little while.

(When he sends her the letter, she hadn't realized that she'd been waiting for it, but she's so relieved she could cry. She doesn't, but if she did Momo wouldn't tell).

Piandao is a pretty cool guy. She'll never admit it, but she'd almost missed playing court games. It's even better now that she has someone to do it with that knows who she is and respects her. Sokka isn't nearly as shabby at it as he acts, though she isn't sure if he's trying to fool himself or everyone else.

He walks differently now, every step more measure, balanced in a way only swordsmen are. And he's Sokka, her best friend, who she spends hours with at the smithy, who jokes freely with her, isn't afraid to step on her toes and yelps when she steps on his. He's Sokka, but he's changed. Grown up, maybe, like she has, though it feels like a betrayal to admit it. He's still silly, brilliant, old Sokka, and these days he's more of a puzzle than ever, even as it feels like they've never understood each other so well.

Turns out, Toph is decent at puzzles, when she stops trying to punch the pieces together. Master Piandao has a chest full of them, for training the mind or something. Warrior training is not all swishy pointy bits, Sokka tells her, very seriously, the way only he could be while saying 'swishy'. Earthbending is like a puzzle too, only benders control where the pieces fit. Besides, most of them have metal bits, and she _owns_ metal. You can't bend wooden pieces, but if you're powerful enough and awesome enough, you can bend the metal framing and make them come together into one complete picture. Pictures did nothing for her, but the feeling of pieces sitting perfectly in metal, that is the art.

(Her parents had tried to teach her music. Writing and drawing was out of question, not when they'd never thought to try to work with something different, and dancing was for lower class girls. It wasn't like she was going to attend any balls. That left music, so on her seventh birthday she was gifted with a pipa and an instructor. She even liked it, at first, but the music tutor had no idea how to teach a blind student and Toph had been way more interested in running away to play with the badger-moles.

A fortnight later, her maid found the pipa kicked to splinters, strings curling on themselves, and the instructor had been kindly dismissed with a hefty sum and a nondisclosure contract. And that had been the end of Toph Bei Fong's career as an artist, until the road. Traveling alone makes distractions a necessity, and one thing leads to another. 

Still, it's not until one of the villagers she built a house for thanked her for turning his humble abode into a work of art that Toph sighed, scrunched her toes in the soil and thought, _yes, that's right. I'm an artist. I'm making things without destroying anything, so it's art_ ).

 

It's really simple: separate they're good, they're great, but if they wiggle around and make space, they fit. And Toph likes stray chaos, but she likes close fits better.

So she made them budge. You can't bend people, but you can bend the world around them, and you can bend yourself. Without a steady foundation, safe ground and sure ceilings and strong walls, the pieces chipped off each other, took the full blunt of every wound. There's a way to make them come together, from the base to the ceiling, to work around the spaces between. She's close to figuring that out when Zuko shows up.

(It's not that they fit together without trying. It's that they try, and try, until they find the best fit, and then _stick_ with it. Quitters gain nothing and lose everything.)

(She can already sense the route of collision. It's going to be _phenomenal_ ).

 

 

**ii**

Sokka is a modest guy. He loves meat, his new space sword and trusty boomerang, his family. So he loves ideas, the more brilliant the last second plan the best. What's wrong with liking to save the day? He might not be a bender, but damn if he isn't one hell of a thinker. He's never tried to be something he wasn't, or deny his nature.

Turns out, mad plans are just as needed in peace as in war, only better paid and with a better time frame. Home - does not feel like home, not really. He doesn't feel satisfied anymore, not like he used to think he was. But was he ever? Grieving Mom and looking after the village and then stoping Aang and Katara from getting killed; he'd been living in the edge of the iceberg so long, he doesn't know how to stand on thick ice.

Maybe it would be different if Dad and all the men weren't there, but now it's like he's no longer important. No, not unimportant - not needed. Not useful, and there's nothing as poisonous to a Water Tribe spirit than uselessness. And it's not like he's not busy, the Chief's son always has heaps of chores to do. With the guys from their sister tribe helping around, though, and Katara flourishing even more under Pakku's tutelage, to the point most of their spars end more and more in wins for her, it feels like his time for greatness has passed. It's a weird feeling for someone who is only seventeen.

He ought to be looking for a bride, building his own family, and while Suki is -- _amazing_ can't begin to describe her, she also has responsibilities to her people. They make a deal, before the Water Tribe fleet had returned home, on Kyoshi's harbor: didn't break it off,really, they'd just go their own ways and if, next time they met, or the time after, or after that one, they're ready for something more permanent, they'd give it a go. But they're planted differently, she'd said, and if they started uprooting because of the other nothing would grow between them.

Sokka had understood, of course he had, he'd been the one to start the conversation on the first place. That didn't mean he wasn't broken up about it anyway. It isn't _fair._

 

(-- interlude --

 

GranGran finds him by the kayaks, sharpening his spear with quick, angry swipes of the whetstone.

"Oh, you have whale bone spears. So do we. Did you know we have whaling contests every year? It's a millennia old tradition of the Northern Water Tribe," he mocks, teeth gritting against each other. His voice rises with every grumble.

"Your tents are very quaint. We have some as well, for long trips, and feasts to honor ' _the primitive past of our glorious tribe'_. But don't worry, we're here to help. I'm sure you southerners will catch up one day--."

He throws the whetstone. The wind surges up in a sudden blast and it falls to the water.

"Grah!" He punches the snow, waves his spear in frustration, and GranGran stops him from doing something stupid with it. It would be just his luck.

"It's not the look of the spear that makes the warrior, or even its sharpness, but the keenness of his mind."  
  
Sokka startles. His hand goes to his boomerang before he remembers he'd lost it in the final attack, and anyway he's putting down the spear again.

"Hi there, GranGran. Do you need help with the chores? I can help, are the visitors being any troub--?"

He drifts off, scratched the back of his neck. GranGran only lifts her eyebrows, unimpressed, and waits for him to fluff the snow for her before sitting down. He plops down beside her morosely, pressing snow between his mittens like an half-built snowball.

"You aren't pleased with the presence of my kin here" she states. Sokka gets up again and starts passing at the prompting, too wound up to try to act the mature grandson. Gran Gran never fel for it anyway.

"They think they're better than us, GranGran! I'm sorry, I know they're your people, and Master Pakku's is going to be your husband" and that was never not going to be weird, "but they come here with their--their _supplies_ and _traditions_ and talks of _Water Tribe unity_ like we're one big happy family when, GranGran, they left us to fend for ourselves while they lazing their lives away in their fancy city with fancy walls and fancy spiritual oasis!"

He lets out a long gush of breath and squints at the dark blue sea under a dark blue sky. Yue isn't down yet, but it will be summer soon. The reminder of months to come without her light makes his shoulders drop lower. He isn't out of words yet, he rarely is, but the futility of the complains is suddenly clear to him.

GranGran doesn't say anything. He sighs again.

"I'm know, I know. I'm sorry, GranGran. I'll be nicer to them," _maybe_ , "and I'm sure Dad is going to figure something out with the elders." Even if he didn't invite Sokka to most of those meetings. It was infuriating, and hurtful, and burn it all, he'd never thought he'd be in Zuko's shoes. Except, you know, his Dad wasn't the Firelord. Or crazy. Or, you know, an actual homicidal dictator. Besides that, same issue, really.

"The war is over. It's all going to work out for the best." He finishes lamely, almost bitter. The war was over. Wow, great, big hurrah. But how do you begin rebuilding the world after a war that spanned everyone alive and their parents and their grandparents? There's no _before the war_ to compare notes with, unless you counted old myths and Aang's rose tinted memories.

"It will." GranGran concurs, sure as the tide, the unsaid _or else_ hanging in the icy air. Sokka grins a bit, thinking of what GranGran would do to Pakku and Dad if things didn't work out perfectly for everyone involved. "But it will not be easy, or pretty. We have survived and fought bravely for our ground. Now we must learn to work and live by the snowdrifts again, without forever looking under the canoe for seawoves. It's not something you unlearn lightly, because it was not a pretty ending if you did not live by it, before. I am lucky. My time will be over soon. I will not have to live while the world changes its face around me, and its people lose and gain new ways."

She looks at him directly, face carved with time and grief and a strength he has known as well as Dad's, and taken for granted. "But you will live though it, Sokka, and I daresay you will be a leader of this new world. If you allow yourself to be. "

She smiles, a rare one, his own mischievousness looking back at him from the ages. He's surprised by how much he loves the old lady."Tradition is all well and good, grandson, but I did not travel all the way across the world because of the great southern waling contests." He snorts. She frowns, serious, and he stifles it.

"There's nothing wrong with change, Sokka. It's part of becoming who we are, growing to be men and women."

Sokka groans, wanting to sink to the snow and hibernate until next season. Or the one after. "When does it stop?" he wails, "I just want thing to be like they were before, or, you know, something! I just want things to make sense."

His grandmother stares at him, and he can't read the look on her face. Sad, maybe, proud. They often look the same on Kanna.

"It doesn't stop." She says bluntly. "You'll have to make sense of it as you go along, and try not to step on weak ice along the way."

He must look really pathetic then, because she softens, lays a hand against his cheek like he's a little boy again and trying not to be scared of the spirit tales after a bonfire night. His grandmother isn't one for grand speeches, this one must be a record holder, so when she speaks he knows to listen closely. "I have faith in you, Sokka. It was your destiny to be with the Avatar, and you fulfilled it like a true Water Tribe warrior. A true _Southern_  Water Tribe warrior. But the Firelord is out of the way. It's time for you to make your own destiny."

They stay like that for a moment more before Kanna gets up, somehow not groaning under the weight of old bones. She dusts herself, turning back to the village without waiting for him.

"Now come along. Chores won't do themselves, and I'm not dying that soon. There better be enough seaprunes for the next fortnight, the east tides will be upon us with the full moon and it would be foolish to put out the nets by then..."

He waits before following her. For what, he's not sure. But after a whilehe nods to himself and salutes Yue with his spear. Then he runs to catch up with his grandmother's surprisingly fast pace and asks what's for dinner.

He leaves by the end of that fortnight. For months after that he falls asleep under Yue's protection, sword under his arm, back to a tree trunk. It almost makes up for the homesickness, and the knowledge that if he did feel it it wasn't for what he left behind. )

  
So he goes back to Master Piandao's to continue his apprenticeship, which is great. And exausting, humiliating, humbling, eye opening, but mostly it's really great. Turns out, there's a lot more to being a swordsman than what can learned in a day, even when the teacher is the best swordsman in the history of swords and men. It's worth the effort, thought it's hard to believe it in the morning, when he wakes up every day _way_ earlier than he ever wanted to, sometimes to a bucketful of water if he takes too long, to meditate, out of all things.

Meditating, Master Piandoa tells him, is not only a discipline for benders, but for everyone determined in maintaining a balanced and disciplined mind. He said it with an undercurrent of of 'if you don't meditate you're an unbalanced undisciplined menance, shame on you and your whole tribe', it was pretty cool. Sokka told him that. Strangely, his master wasn't very pleased when he expressed his interest in learning passive aggressive politeness instead.

He does learn it eventually, thought it's called etiquette, and it involves a lot more titles and rules about how to bow and dress and speak and a lot less passive aggressive one liners that he expected. It's interesting, though, beneath the boring prissiness of it all, how little gestures can mean war or courtship or that your mother's cooking smells of squirrel-monkey dung. Like warriors posturing and the traditions the Northern Water Tribe hold so closely. Master is much more pleased with this insight than the other. Sokka knows this because his lips twitch exactly three degrees forward.

In the same current, Master Piandao's bluff is legendary. Being thaught Pai Sho by Master Piandao is like warrior training, war tatics, every trick Sokka learned on the road, all put together, but playing dirty. Playing Pai Sho with him is, like, Pai Sho suicide, unless you are Iroh. Then it is Pai Sho goodness. Watching them play is Pai Sho life goals. Sokka looks forward to the day he gets to watch them, then play with them and win. Big dreams for Meat Guy, but he finds he likes them.

Hey, his destiny, his goals.

His apprenticeship also does involves more drawing of characters than he ever wanted to do. His drawing skills are still nothing to write home about, but some of his doodles turn into sketches of machines, turn into pages and pages of ideas. He spends more and more time in the smithy. The focus of heating the metal, following the routine without allowing for imperfections, it attracts him. Everything about it makes _sense_ , in a way the rest of the world doesn't, with bending and spiritual guidance systems and the end of the Hundred Years' War. Smithing takes patience, technique, and most importantly, the determination to try and try again, accept the crooked daggers and cracked swords and learn with their imperfections. His nitpicking perfection fits right in, and now that he's corresponding with the Mechanist, there are always newer and grander projects in the horizon.

It makes sense to call Toph. Not cause he needs to, nope, but Katara's letters are more worried about her 'wild wandering ways' and who would say no to a helping hand from the world's one and only metalbender? Not Sokka, that's for sure.

It's not like he's worried too, or like he misses her and rereads her letters every week. Or anything like that. No, not one bit like that.

They greet each other and throw themselves right into working together, and it's good. It's brilliant, better than he remembered really. She's better than he remembered, still Toph, only older and tougher around the edges, sharper around the smiles. Life on the road had been hard on her, but in a strange way he thinks she needed it. She fits better in her skin, now. 

(interlude--

 

They kiss for the first time in the smithy, sweet clinging to both their faces. They'd been working out how to incorporate sandbending on glass-making, like the desert tribes did to sell at their bazaars, and suddenly they were leaning into each other, and it couldn't have ever ended up differently, really. They would always end up thas way: Toph standing on his toes, his arms around her, glass reflections shining a hundred colors in the inside of his lids.

He loves her, his best friend. He's falling in love with her too. He feels kind of an idiot for not having seen it coming. Mostly he's too happy to care.)

 

Master Paindao and Toph are creepily polite to each other until he realizes they're teaching him snobiness or etiquette or whatever, and then it's a game of who can bluff best. Piandao wins always, but Toph is scarily good at it, being a rich merchant last and all, plus Iroh's unofficial protégé. Not seeing her opponents might help too. Sokka isn't a slouch either, if only he can stop himself from giggling.

It comes in handy when the Fire Lord's court passes through for some unheard of hands-on ruling, all pomp and subtle gestures that he marvels at, now that he knows they're there. He manages to keep the grin off his face for a full minute when he sees Zuko again, all fancy with the flame-shiny in his head.

Zuko smiles back, clumsy at it like someone who isn't used to moving his muscles like that, like his cheeks are stiff from a cold wind, slow and surprised, and Sokka has a Moment, the kind that deserves the big M, the kind that come with his most spectacular ideas, epic successes or even more epic failures.

Anyway. Sokka is not an ambitious guy. He's Idea Guy. And he's never needed bending to put his genius into reality.

 

 

**iii**

Zuko isn't lucky.

He is lucky to be alive, everyone knows that. Lucky to survive that damned Agni Kai, lucky to find the Avatar in a mad quest for honor, lucky to live old enough to understand what honor means. Regaining it, there's nothing lucky about it. Just endless peace talks, giving and giving and never giving enough. Nation wide penance weights on his shoulders like a bolder, down to his bones.

  
Every night he walks to his chambers after another meeting, scar itching fiercely. He doesn't get lucky. It's as much a fact of him as his dark hair and royal ancestry and badly hidden love for fireflakes.

He doesn't get lucky, but if he did, this is what it would look like, roughly:

 

_exhibit a)_

Five years after the war and there hasn't been another one. Squimishes, rebels, colonials that won't budge, the occasional extremist group or a dozen, but no full out war. Zuko's life has descended into an endless procession of council meeting, formal apologies and closely averted disasters, everyday a little more smothering than the next. He'd forgotten how to stay in one single place for long periods of time.

He misses the sea. He misses Uncle, the road, the sky overhead and the desperate need for something, for a titanic goal. Instead he has stuffy war rooms turned into chambers for peace talk negotiation, a nation of war mongers on his shoulders, royal canopies around his bed when he wakes and falls asleep and during the long hours inbetween.

It got worse after coming back from the trip. At the time, going around the nation and the colonies to show he was earnest about changing the style of ruling had seemed a good idea. It had been a good idea, it worked, despite the small issue of the tiny tiny coup on Capital City.

That he'd spent the best weeks of his life in Shu Jeng and falling in love with not one, but both of his friends, had noting to do with it. He wasn't pining, Sokka had made sure of that, and hiding things like secret impossible torches didn't really work around Toph, but he missed them. A lot.

Agni, Azula would mock him so much if she saw him now, sulking because his --boyfriend and girlfriend? -- were far away. It was a struggle not to think of himself like a pathetic disgrace of a Fire Lord/ boyfriend/ human being, but at this point he'd become an expert on working around those thoughts. Or at least he has practice at it.

Instead, he spent his days in constant longing for companionship, and lacking that, tea, but none of the palace cooks can begin to reach Uncle's mastery. It's just a little thing, just one of a thousand certainties and unknown comforts he had taken for granted before the reality of leadership set in.

Like training with the dao swords. There's a short window of time, before breakfast, that he uses to meditate and train. The gardens are especially quiet that time of the day, the architecture designed to bring out the full glory of dawn lighting up tiles and the pond's still water. For once his head is clear and his moves are smooth, certain. There's no room for self doubt in these katas, only movement and rhythm, controlled breathing. His eyes close of their own violation as he treads, bare-feeted, upon the dewed grass.

The swoosh startles him. One sword is already flying, the other guarding his flank, when the steels hits a vortex of air and falls down with a clatter.

Zuko lets go of the other one, relaxing his guard. He's smiling; he can feel his scar stretching with it.

"Aang! What are you doing here? Where's Appa?" he looks around, waiting for the large mass of fluff to land in the too-manicured gardens. The image of their controlled beauty being conquered by some good airbending chaos is too tempting, proof he's spent too long arguing with stubborn old men.

Aang rocks on his heels, delighted as ever. In this light the sun shines off Aang tittle bald head. Not so little now; Zuko doesn't have to lean down so much to hug him these days. Hug the Avatar, his best friend. If his life isn't a spirit tale, he doesn't know what his. "He stayed behind at the Northern Air Temple, Teo and the other air gliders love him."

"Oh, I bet he loves their treats too." Aang laughs, Zuko chuckles, because his humor will never stop being terrible and Aang finds humor in everything. Eighteen years old, vanquished of wars, and he's still the closest thing Zuko has to a little brother.

He wonders if Aang will mind officiating the ceremony. The Fire Sages would want a part, of course, and while he's talked at length with Sokka about Warer Tribe costumes, he's not sure what would be appropriate in this case---

No. Too soon for that. He swallows the sudden image of Toph grinning at him over wedding rice wine and Sokka in ceremonial furs and turns back to Aang's explanation.

"Anyway, I hope I didn't come in a bad time."

He waves it away, bending down to sheathe the blades and leaning back against a tree. Aang leans down too, to pet the purple ducks that had come out, quaking at the noisy intruders.

  
"You're always welcome at the Fire Palace, Avatar Aang." They grin at each other, not managing to fake formality when it's just them. It's a joke between their group of friends, how much Aang dislikes being bowed to.

A group of friends. He had that. It would never stop being surprising.

Aang's stomach rumbles, making his rub his neck sheepishly. Zuko laughs outright, feeling lighter than he had in four days, which coincidentally was the last time he got a letter from Toph and Sokka. Aang inst either one of his --lovers?-- significant others, but he's family, and not the crazy, megalomanic family he was born to.

He nods towards the balcony, falling easily into pace with Aang, him stalking and the Avatar skipping.

"Come on, breakfast should be ready by now. You can tell me why you felt the need to fly all the way from the Northern Air Temple."

Aang lights up. When he moves his hands, fallen leaves rise around them with his enthusiasm.

"Oh Zuko, you have to hear this! I was talking to the Mechanist, right, me and Appa are stayed there with the Air Acolytes, and apparently the fields they use for food are being eaten and, Zuko, it's air bisons! They're wild now, live in large flocks, and some of them are huge, way bigger than Appa..."

  
_exhibit b)_

"Oh Father!" The woman on her knees cries, arms straining towards the paper sun. "Forgive us! Forgive me! For we are young and caught in love's cruel net, and though I am one of your beloved children, this human man is a great and powerful warrior. He has stole my heart, Father!"

They're sitting at the back of the amphitheater, where the seats are crammed but hopefully anyone in the crowd will have a harder time identifying them. It wasn't one of the high end theaters, but not too shabby either, in an open space with round stands around the stage.

Really, he should be at the Palace reviewing the new treaty with Omashu, but that plan had come down the drain when Toph had showed up in the middle of the conference, badly startling the guard and nobles by carving her way right through the the very rock, and dragging him away.

Her 'I will bring Lord Sparky if there's another invasion' wasn't very reassuring, but none of the guards had followed them. He should probably sack them, actually, but he suspects that at least some of them have guessed the nature of their relationship.

"You know, kidnapping the Fire Lord is pretty illegal. Also, dangerous." He'd complained, following her through the back alleys of his city. Toph had only lifted an eyebrow and smirked. Her smirks were much nicer than Azula's, more like small grins really. It made his heart try to stutter stupidly and swell at the same time.

Toph, being Toph, had only smirked more.

"But it's fun. Your security sucks, by the way, you should sack some of those guys."

He had sighed. "I know."

But it wasn't like he'd wanted to stay in the meeting, so he'd given up with the token protests. It was strangely enjoyable, dodging the crowds, skulking in the shadows just because, all the thrill with few dangers. They'd ended up kissing against a wall, Toph trapping him firmly against the sandstone despite her small stature, until Sokka had poked his head around a corner and mock-coughed.

"Oh, come on guys! You can kiss later, we're going to miss the start." He'd shoved an armful of civilian clothes at Zuko, rolled his eyes and kissed his soundly before pulling them by the shoulders towards the growing press of bodies, without giving him much time to change.

Now they are halfway through the play and Zuko doesn't know when they'd all locked hands, but he was gripping them hard. He doesn't move, doesn't blink. Not until Sokka, who had been busy nuzzling his neck, suddenly poked him in the arm, hard.

He broke his eyes away from the stage to glare at his boyfriend. "What was that for?" he whispers.

Sokka frowns, speaking just as softly. "You know, I'm pretty sure it's bad etiquette not to canoodle on dates. I read somewhere in Master's scrolls, yap, 'apparent disinterest during courtship outings', really offensive."

Zuko shakes his head, flushing. It was a good surprise, the kidnapping, having them here, watching his favorite play. The canoodling, that was great too. But for a second, half a breathless moment, he'd thought...

Well. He'd thought it might turn into another kind of surprise.

"Sorry, my favorite part is coming. Though," he corrects himself. "I like this part better now."

Back when theater companies had a permanently saved seat for Lady Ursa, and Love Among the Dragons had been the best play ever, not only because of the awesome firebending or the epic love, but because in the end, Father-Agni welcomed his daughter and her human husband in his shelter, offering the gift of firebending to his new son and his sons sons. Any moment now hidden fire benders will make a show out of the paper sun's light, and the lady dragon, now forgiven, will come home to her husband's lands, where he will be forevermore respected and loved by his once doubtful family.

  
As a child, it had been his dearest dream. Victory, his family's welcoming pride, the power of dragons at his disposal. Nowadays he prefers the moment of Magashi's repentance, when Agni's light falls on her and rests there kindly, forgiving her for her follies.

The propaganda value is chillingly clear, teaching Fire Nation citizens that there is nothing they could do that Agni could frown upon, that they are blessed by the sun itself, but Zuko has been in Magashi's shoes before, and wonders if Agni's embrace had been as comforting as Uncle's.

Sokka looks at him silently. His eyes, understanding without being pitying, shine in the controlled lighting. Zuko licks his lips, leaning in. "I guess you wouldn't be interested in canoodling anymore."

Sokka grins. "I wouldn't go that-- yelp!"

"Shush! Some people need quiet to watch this." Toph hisses. Some people nearby turn to glare at them. Zuko looks down, hoping the dark will mask his features, but no one notices him with Sokka hugging his hand to himself. Toph had pinched them both without moving her eyes from the stage, feet planted on the stone ground. This was nothing like the Ember Island Players, much better actors and direction, and she'd been focused with her feet and ears since they'd came in.

She'd also been hogging the fireflakes. He and Sokka exchange nods. Carefully, he starts stuffing his hands full of fireflakes, passing them to Sokka with a smirk of his own. Toph doesn't care, too interested in the play to do more than stuff her cheeks rather like a chipmunk-squirrel. It is adorable, even if he'd never tell her on pain of death.

His hand is halfway to his mouth when he stills. Again, the same recognition prickles at the back of him mind, trying to place what he was hearing to what he remembers.

The actress is speaking again, rising from her knees. She faces the crowd, her heavily made up face ghostly white in the lighting. The theater falls silent, even the few birds calming down as the last lines before the intermission ring out.

Zuko mouths along, following her mouth as he used to as a child, word for word.

"For we of fire yield great power, aye, we burn the world with out spirits. But ours is a candle with two ends, for our fire is prey also to the world. Bright is the flame of our hearts, brighter still the flame of love."

The actress's eyes fall on his, watering like his. Mom, _Mom_. "That is the only flame that never goes out. Aye, thought the world may end and the sun go down forevermore, my love, our flame will never burn out."

  
_exhibit c)_

 

There are papers strewn in every vertical surface and some diagonal ones, unlikely plans and mechanisms in a calligraphy that isn't perfect, but grows better everyday. When he walks by the windows to the gardens beneath dust is falling on the reeds and manicured shrubs, turtle-ducks flapping their discontentment.

He is walking to the balcony when his shoes get stuck on something. He scoops down to pick it up, back creaking from too long in the same unyielding seat. It's a sketch, smudged, with abstract shapes of what might be the skyline of a city, or a group of very weird cactus.

A tall order, that of a new city for citizens from every corner of the world, something they spoke off when they got together. But with the Air Nation more and more steady on its feet, the air bisons allowing much easier travel, and the Fire Nation in dire need of a project to channel their energy, it had started turning into a solid possibility.

But not yet. Now he has just came from a long day of starting the groundwork to establish any sort of acceptance when the time comes that one of the Fire Nation's heir might not be a fire bender. It was a long way off, but not so long; the first responses to the wedding invitations were already arriving. Of course, Toph would hardly be a traditional Fire Lady, and Sokka gave so many headaches to the council that he might as well have a firebending target on his back, but it will work out. They'll make sure of it.

Besides. Zuko had been toying with the idea of adopting an heir for a while. Let Sozin's bloodline be watered down or ground to stone - he was the Fire Lord, his world was law. But it could have just as easily been Azula sitting on his throne, walking these halls and sleeping on this bed. Responsibility for a whole nation was not the definition of lucky, not for anyone with half a mind, but it could have been much worse.

It could be much worse for the world, and for him as well. When he leans on the balcony its to find Sokka utterly focused on a mess of wires and iron attached together, occasionally directing Toph to shape the metal this way and that. She rolls blind eyes rudely, argues back about the benefits of copper over bronze for flexibility while bending little screws into place.

They are both smudged with oil, hair unkempt. Sokka's hands are still stained with ink and Toph is wearing her Blind Bandit clothes, all the warning he's likely to get before his councillors bother him tomorrow about her breaking up a fight, or maybe starting a fight, but winning, always winning. She notices him before he comes down to the grass, pulling him to their discussion with some jab that has him swallowing back unexpected laughter. Sokka waves distractedly, tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth.

"Hey Zuko, how was your day?"

He sighs, knuckling his temple where his head pounds. "Politics," he answers shortly. Toph cackles and he glares back without heat. "Your grandmother and Master Pakku are traveling with Mom. Some of the younger waterbenders are interested in the theater, Mom says they might add water bending next tour."

Mom had written. Mom wrote every other day, whenever she had access to paper and messenger hawks, long letters filled with neat calligraphy, paper enough to fill his drawers. He writes back faithfully, and if they can never have the time they lost, then they make a good try at filling what they have now, one letter at a time.

And it is easier to start like that. Neater. Better to start with ink, to pour hurts and frustrations without drawing blood. He tells himself this, knows it to be true, and yet. He misses her, maybe more than he ever did when she first left.

Toph nudges his shoulder, a bruising support. He nudges back, tugs one of her bangs, sighs against her mouth when she reels him in for a kiss. There's engine oil and dust on his face where it touched her, a smile when her lips were. Forehead to forehead, eyes closed, more comfortable than he'd been since he left their bed that morning.

Sokka smiles halfmindedly, waving his hand until he gets a kiss of his own. "Mmh. Sounds like we've had a much better time, but oh well, no one can be as awesome as us. We love you anyway."

  
Zuko plops down in the grass, snorting and smirking at the same time.

"What have you been up to then, oh awesome ones?"

Sokka preens all the way to his toes, making Toph roll her eyes. "I've have an idea about the airships designs, but they'd need a stronger structure..." He turns back to the metal. This close, Zuko realizes that it's a prototype of something between a train and an airship, with strange fin-like extensions.

Toph stomps her foot, petulant if it weren't for he the dents it makes on the soil. "I'm telling you, we'd need stronger fuel for that. The sandbenders have some, it's deep into the dunes, it might work if we tweak this here, and that..."  
  
Zuko sits in the waning shade and takes out the bread, kept in his pocket since lunch. Not very Fire Lord-ish of him, but all leaders have their vices. His is this: sitting in the cool grass after a long and vaguely productive day, with the people he loves most around him, making the future one screw at a time, feeding the turtle-ducks and relaxing. The turtle-ducks wad closer, the young chicks sticking close to their mothers. He lets his hand fall to the water, little crumbs floating in the ripples around it. There are still some hours of sunshine before the day set, and if he's very lucky, they'll be able to have dinner right here. He isn't counting on it, though.

All he has was handmade, carved out of harsh rock, a long backbreaking labour. This, right here, isn't luck. It's a masterpiece of engineering, and it's a work in progress. With or without luck, they're building it to last.

**Author's Note:**

> So this got away from me. A lot. I tried to keep their voices in character, so that's why Toph, being a person of few words, has the shorter part, while Zuko's inner voice is always ranting or trying to verbalize himself (and not always managing).
> 
> A pipa is a four stringed chinese instrument. 
> 
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://searchingforserendipity25.tumblr.com).


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